Kaiser Health Tracking Poll -- February 2011

In the wake of the health reform repeal vote in the U.S. House and the ongoing legal challenges over the individual mandate, nearly half the country either believes that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been repealed and is no longer law (22 percent) or doesn’t know enough to say whether it is still law (26 percent). Roughly half of Americans (52 percent) accurately report that the ACA is still the law of the land.

Meanwhile, views on repeal continue to be very mixed: with four in ten backing repeal (but half of those hoping the law will be replaced with a Republican alternative), three in ten backing an expansion of the law, and two in ten hoping to see it implemented as is. And most Americans continue to report they want to keep many of the key provisions of the law. There is more agreement when it comes to the strategy of using the legislative budgeting process to stop implementation of the law: six in ten continue to oppose the idea.

Overall opinion on the law is largely unchanged from January, with the public roughly divided and partisans on opposite sides of the issue, though negative views having risen among senior citizens in recent months. Finally, the survey finds little evidence that the public is suffering from issue fatigue when it comes to health reform.

The February poll is the latest in a series designed and analyzed by the Foundation’s public opinion research team.